13/05/02-19/05/02
The only sane choice on an insane Monday for Single Of The Week is Ooberman's 'Bluebell Morning EP' (Rotodisc). What's it like? Lovely, obviously. (Insert usual wild-eyed rant about how they are the most underrated band in the world and it's a crying shame how they've been neglected, and oh what does it say about the state of the nation that we haven't gathered them to our bosom, and stuff.) Their new stuff is a little more subdued than the glorious kaleidoscopic follies sprawled trippily all over 'The Magic Treehouse', more self-involved, but never wandering into wanky territory. Their songwriting is clever as ever. Stubbornly romantic blood courses through Ooberman in a grey miserable bastard of a world, and gives rise to not only the intensely pretty 'Angel Of Bradford' but also the mad pogo-metal Mamoushka hoedown opus that is 'SnakeDance'. Always a dream to believe in.
And now, some noise. And some parentheses. The (International) Noise Conspiracy are - woo! - another wicked rock'n'roll band with added agenda, in a similar bulging fuck-off vein to our faves Miss Black America. Their new 'un 'Up For Sale' (Burning Heart Records) showcases Dennis Lyxzen's classy sneer and the band's Clash-ish crashiness. But never mind that, hear B-side 'Written On The Bourgeois Body', which sounds like The Eighties Matchstick Beebop Catastrophe crumbling to dust when the sunlight hits them. Everyone loves a good two-minute punch-up.
More noise vicar? Ciccone have 'All Stacked Up' out on Muff Records. Muff! Hur hur! Anyway - lots of undeserving little worms get plastered with the lofty accolades of "riotous", "punky", "poptastic", etc, but stuff them. Ciccone are properly, effortlessly all of the above. It doesn't take much, really - personality, speed, bit o'talent, bit o'spunk, some guitars. Trouble is that too many people only have the last one and think that qualifies them as leaders of the hot young punk pups brigade. Well, stuff them. 'All Stacked Up' is really fast and really cheeky and really cool and it goes "GIMMEGIMMEGIMMEGIMMEH!" quite a lot, and is really rather cockney. A London band worth a damn? Blimey. And they have at least two good singers, one of each, while most punk pop pretenders can barely muster one.
Clinic have another single out from their splendid 'Walking With Thee' album, 'Come Into Our Room' (Domino). Ade Blackburn groans "oh, it's wonderful" at intervals, truthfully. True to form it's a gentle, creepy, inventive, insidious lo-fi thing. Which is more than you can say for 'Starbucks' by A which is out on London. So unsubtle is it with its bouncy verse-chorus-verse-CHORUS!-ness that bricks go up to them in the street, clonk them on the head and tell them they should be ashamed of their frightfully unsubtle selves. Yep, this song and indeed this band are very, very obvious indeed, but so are things like ice cream and kisses with tongues, and everyone likes them. Having said that the album did yield a nice surprise or three. And if they don't release 'The Springs' next we will eat our sun-visors.
Sarah Bee
